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jing, AnHAP REQ VAD AoPRAeAse 200M OH 14s: ClA-RDPS6-00792RE003004200'7 spccessiul in China Boasting a skill that Chinese researchers had by now named extraordinary functions of the human boay, these children claimed to do far more than read with their ears. They could, they said, decipher hidden tnessages wilh their fingers, palms, scalps, abdomens, feet, armpits, and buttocks. One nine-year-old girl even claimed she could read messages by touching the crumpled paper with the end of her pigtail. Reports began coming in about children with powers of telepathy, clairvoyance, X-ray vision, and psychokinesis. The typical child was between the ages of nine and fourteen, but a few were as young as four or as old as twenty-five; and it was estimated by Feng Hua, a traditional Chinese physician, that there were about 2,000 such gifted children within the Chinese population of 4 billion. By early 1980 these remarkable children had made their way to the pages of China's prestigious Nature Journal. And that Febru- ary the surge of interest prompted Nature Journal to sponsor a huge conference—the First Science Symposium on the Extraordi- nary Function of the Human Body—for par- ticipants from more than 20 colleges and medical schools. The proceedings were filmed by the Shanghai Science and Edu- cation Studio, and the film, called Do You Believe /t?, was shown over national televi- sion to millions of Chinese. As publicity mounted, interest spread be- yond the mainland to Hong Kong, Japan, and Taiwan. And it didn’t take long for the news to pique the interest of parapsycholo- gists throughout the West. Because West- ern researchers are less inclined to associ- ate such abilities with the body, though, they relabeled the supposed phenomenon ex- ceptional human functions (EHF). | first learned of EHF from a Los Angeles Times article. Chinese scientists were “baf- fled by studies of children who can ‘see’ ob- jects hidden in boxes, read Chinese char- acters tucked under their armpits, and identify colors without using their eyes.” As asociologist of science at Eastern Michigan University and director of the independent Center for Scientific Anomalies Research, | was anxious to investigate further. Through my center's many informants, | was able to obtain a steady stream of Chinese articles translated by the American gov t. This documentation, often terribly vague in its detail and usually opaquely translated by computers, demonstrated that Chinese sci- entists were serious about something that seemed quite preposterous. Before beginning an active investigation of my own, | decided to try to glean a bit of understanding from the past. Paranormal in- cidents, | soon learned, were a significant part of China's mythology. In one ancient parable, for instance, a mystic named Kang Gang-Zi was reputed to have seen and heard without using his eyes or ears. tn an- other legend, two mediums were called upon to identify the grave of a princess; they are said to have given an accurate, clairvoyant These ancient myths, derived from the first few centuries of the millennium. have set the tone for Chinese folklore and beliefs ever since. But despite this rich tradition, the Marxist takeover in 1949 put a clamp on be- lief in the supernatural. China's official crit- ics, in fact, denounced parapsychology as superstitious and mystical nonsense, label- ing it "religion without the cross.” They even accused the United Stales and the Soviet Union of vigorously promoting psychic phe- nomena to distract their citizens from the world’s true crises. A softer line didn't emerge until early 1980, around the time of the Nature Journal con- ference. In a story on “sorcery, witchcraft, and fortune-telling,” The Beijing Review conceded that “so long as these activities do not affect the political and productive ac- tivities of the collective, the government will not prevent them by administrative means.” in other words, according to astute China watcher Martin Ebon, the government was EE SELES @A group from the Beijing Teacher Training Institute announced that its young charges could cause an operating radio transmitter to disappear from one room and show up in another? ee admitting that perhaps some of the phe- nomena could be “scientifically observed, traced, controlled, recorded, manipulated, or provoked.” Chinese scientists would be allowed to prove what was superstition and what was not. Given the go-ahead, a number of Chinese scientists leapt to action. Researchers Chen . Shouliang and He Muyan, of Beijing Univer- sity, studied two sisters—Wang Qiang, thir- teen, and Wang Bin, eleven. In a series of eight tests, the girls placed paper with Chi- nese symbols under their armpits; in 109 subsequent tests, the messages were sealed in special envelopes. According to scien- tists testing the girls, the subjects scored correctly about 85 percent of the time—and they did not cheat. In another experiment, conducted by Xu Xinfang and his group at Anhui Normal Uni- versity, a boy and a girl said to have EHF reportedly guessed not only hidden mes- sages but also the color of the pencil used to write each message. The scientists said the children scored correctly 91 percent of the time, but the subjects could not identify their targets in total darkness. The result, in May 1981, was the Second Sci- ence Symposium on the Extraordinary Function of the Hurnan Body. According to reports arriving at my Michigan office, that conference was spectacular. A special physics research tearn from the High En- ergy Institute announced that children with EHF could expose film in lightproof con- tainers. When engaged in such activity, moreover, the children seemed to emit light quanta and electrical waves that could be picked up with special biodelectors. A group from the Beijing Teacher Training Institute announced that their young charges could cause an operating radio transmitter 10 dis- appear from one room and show up in an- other. Yet another group claimed that a twelve-year-old girl could use psychokine- sis to move the hands of a watch. The stories seemed to go on forever. But the most remarkable news to come from that meeting was the deep involvement of Qian Xue Sen, known in China as the Father of the Missile. Before returning to China in 1955, Qian had been the Gaddard Professor of Jet Propulsion at Caltech and the director of the rocket section of the U.S. National Defense Scientific Board. Thanks to Qian, by 1980 China had successfully launched 12 satel- lites and fired an intercontinental ballistic © missile 10,000 kilometers. His work, in fact, would soon make China the third nation to send men into space. Qian, however, had recently become a passionate leader in the field of EHF. And to enthralled scientists, his support made a tremendous difference. “Every day we have new discoveries,” he told his followers. “This reminds us of the atmosphere when Ein- stein's theories of relativity and quantum mechanics were introduced onto the stage of modern science.” Invoking the name of Einstein was oddly appropriate, for those in China likened Qian's influence to Einstein's influence in backing the atom bomb during World War Il. The great space-scientist-turned-EHF-enthusi- ast, in fact, had reportedly secured the pri- vate support of Prime Minister Zhao Ziyang and the public approval of the renowned Chairman Hu Yao Bang. ; The reports, coming mostly from Defense Department translations and the journal Psi Research, seemed to get more incredible by the day. So early in 1981, | was thrilied to get a call from my friend Stanley Krippner, dean of the graduate school at the Saybrook Institute, in San Francisco. Krippner, best known for his work on te- lepathy during dreams, is one of the most respected—and skeptical---parapsycholo- gists in the United States. His trips to the Soviet bloc have produced a fount of infor- mation on psychic research there; so it was no wonder that in light of recent reports, he was planning a trip to China. As it turned out, Krippner had planned his two-week tour with the help of an efferves- cent Chinese woman named Shuyin L. 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